Other books that might interest you

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  Italian olive trees are...

  PBS NewsHour

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  The Salento region in southern Italy is synonymous with its renowned olive groves, some of which are thousands of years old. But a deadly bacteria, which causes trees to wither, is threatening a critical part of Salento's livelihood and very identity. Jeffrey Brown reports.

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  Underbug - An Obsessive Tale of...

  Lisa Margonelli

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  The award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli, national bestselling author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum's Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, investigates the environmental and economic impact termites inflict on human societies in this fascinating examination of one of nature's most misunderstood insects. 
  Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings 10 to one and consume $40 billion-worth of valuable stuff annually—and yet, in Margonelli's telling, seem weirdly familiar. 
  Over the course of a decade-long obsession with the little bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military industrial complex. 
  What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we're building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition. 
  Whether in Namibia or Cambridge, Arizona or Australia, Margonelli turns up astounding facts and raises provocative questions. Is a termite an individual or a unit of a superorganism? Can we harness the termite's properties to change the world? If we build termite-like swarming robots, will they inevitably destroy us? Is it possible to think without having a mind? 
  Underbug burrows into these questions and many others—unearthing disquieting answers about the world's most underrated insect and what it means to be human.

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  Sex Itself - The Search for Male...

  Sarah S. Richardson

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  Human genomes are 99.9 percent identical—with one prominent exception. Instead of a matching pair of X chromosomes, men carry a single X, coupled with a tiny chromosome called the Y. Tracking the emergence of a new and distinctive way of thinking about sex represented by the unalterable, simple, and visually compelling binary of the X and Y chromosomes, Sex Itself examines the interaction between cultural gender norms and genetic theories of sex from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, postgenomic age.           Using methods from history, philosophy, and gender studies of science, Sarah S. Richardson uncovers how gender has helped to shape the research practices, questions asked, theories and models, and descriptive language used in sex chromosome research. From the earliest theories of chromosomal sex determination, to the mid-century hypothesis of the aggressive XYY supermale, to the debate about Y chromosome degeneration, to the recent claim that male and female genomes are more different than those of humans and chimpanzees, Richardson shows how cultural gender conceptions influence the genetic science of sex.            Richardson shows how sexual science of the past continues to resonate, in ways both subtle and explicit, in contemporary research on the genetics of sex and gender. With the completion of the Human Genome Project, genes and chromosomes are moving to the center of the biology of sex. Sex Itself offers a compelling argument for the importance of ongoing critical dialogue on how cultural conceptions of gender operate within the science of sex.

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  Harpoon at a Venture

  Gavin Maxwell

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  In this memoir, the Scottish naturalist and author of Ring of Bright Water recounts his post-World War II life as a shark fisherman in the Hebrides. A shark fishery based on the tiny Hebridean island of Soay was the beginning of Gavin Maxwell’s enduring love affair with the west coast of Scotland. This, his first book, tells the whole story—the challenge and drama of the shark hunt, the development of catching techniques and equipment, the men who worked with him, and some of the frustrations of starting a new enterprise in post-war Scotland. Every chapter is packed with action and anecdote. In each there are also beautifully observed descriptions of sky, sea and the individual islands of the Hebrides as well as their wildlife—from gannets, puffins, Manx shearwaters, and fulmars to seals, dolphins, and whales.

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  The Ultimate Treatment Coordinator

  Luke Infinger

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  How would your life change if you doubled your practice?Most orthodontists would like more new patients. They may have a goal for production, but they have no idea how to get there. They just wish they could grow faster and easier.The “Ultimate Treatment Coordinator” is Book #2 in The Orthodontic Practice Growth Series. In it, you’ll discover how to implement the 5 Growth Hacks below to get your practice on track to hit your production goal quickly.1. Respond to leads in 5 minutes or less and schedule them within 72 hours2. Pre-frame fees and same-day starts in the first call3. Double capacity with our 30-Minute New Patient Consultation4. Get more ‘yeses’ with our 5-Minute Fee Presentation5. Start 80% of new patients the same day with our Proven PlaybookYour TC is your alchemist. They turn prospects into patients and increase production. The national conversion average is 52%. These 5 Growth Hacks will have them converting over 80%

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  Robots - What Everyone Needs to...

  Phil Husbands

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  There is a huge effort underway in industry and universities to develop the next generation of more intelligent, autonomous, mobile robots. Accompanying these arrivals has been a steady stream of inflammatory articles in the media raising concerns over the impending specter of super-intelligentrobots, along with stories about how most jobs will soon be lost to robots.Here, using the question-and-answer format, Phil Husbands gives a balanced and broad introduction to robotics and the current state of the field, analyzing where it has come from, and where it might go in the future. He begins with the history of robotics and its complex relationship with popularculture, and then moves on to discuss the technology underlying robots in an engaging, non-technical way, exploring the limits of what robots can actually do now and what they might be able to do in the future. Naturally these machines are attracting great attention. Do they pose a threat or an unprecedented opportunity? And although the "singularity" may not be something to worry about, there are certainly ethical issues needing consideration as robots with some intelligence are used increasingly across many sectors. Husbands considers both these ethical problems and also the wider socio-political challenges that robots are already creating, and the larger ones they might bring in the future.

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